57 Fun Facts About Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks was born in which city in Oklahoma?

Tulsa is where he was born on 7 February 1962 as Troyal Garth Brooks, the youngest of six children; Garth is his middle name, and Troyal was his father's name.

Garth Brooks's mother, Colleen Carroll, recorded in the 1950s for which label, which signed her son in 1988?

Capitol recorded Colleen Carroll in the 1950s and signed her son in 1988, after an executive who had recently turned him down heard him play Nashville's Bluebird Cafe.

Garth Brooks grew up in which small Oklahoma town, where his family held talent nights at home?

Yukon, a small town just west of Oklahoma City, is where the Brooks family settled; at their talent nights every child had to take part by singing or doing a skit.

In which track-and-field event did Garth Brooks compete on his college scholarship?

Javelin was his event on a college track scholarship; sport rather than singing was his main focus growing up, and he has said his childhood dream was to be a professional athlete.

Which university did Garth Brooks attend, later returning to finish an MBA in 2011?

Oklahoma State gave Brooks an advertising degree and, in May 2011, an MBA he had earned in his spare time; he crossed the stage in cap and gown with the other graduates.

During college, Garth Brooks worked nights at a Stillwater bar in which job?

Bouncer was his night job at a Stillwater bar; he also sang in the town's clubs, and his band Santa Fe later followed him to Nashville before splitting up.

Whose 1981 debut single 'Unwound' convinced Garth Brooks to play country music?

George Strait's 'Unwound' came on the radio while Brooks was home after his freshman year of college; he said he knew from that point that he wanted to be George Strait.

After moving to Nashville in 1987, Garth Brooks paid the bills by managing a store that sold what?

Cowboy boots paid his bills while he sang demos for other songwriters; his first try at Nashville, in 1985, had ended with him heading home to Oklahoma within a day.

What was Garth Brooks's debut single?

'Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)', written with his friend Randy Taylor about a road-weary rodeo cowboy, never topped the chart but opened the door for everything that followed.

Which song gave Garth Brooks his first number one on the country chart?

'If Tomorrow Never Comes' reached number one in December 1989; Brooks said he ran the idea past what seemed like a thousand writers before Kent Blazy had the first verse down within 15 seconds.

Which Irish singer topped the UK chart in 2002 with a cover of Garth Brooks's first country number one?

Ronan Keating, the former Boyzone singer, took the ballad to number one in the UK in May 2002; Brooks's own biggest British single had stalled at number 13.

Which song does Garth Brooks call his favorite of everything he has recorded?

'The Dance' closed his debut album and spent three weeks at number one in 1990; Brooks said in 1994 that he would go to his grave with it, and in 2015 he was still naming it his favorite.

Which champion bull rider appears in the video for the ballad that closes Garth Brooks's debut album?

Lane Frost, the 1987 world champion bull rider, died at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1989 after completing his ride; the video sets him in a montage of people Brooks wanted to honour.

Whose opening act was Garth Brooks on his first major tour, in 1989?

Kenny Rogers gave him the opening slot on the northeastern leg of his 1989 Christmas tour; Brooks, who had thought of Rogers as a pop act, said working with him turned Rogers into one of his heroes.

Which song from No Fences became Garth Brooks's signature blue-collar anthem?

'Friends in Low Places' reached Brooks as the last demo he ever sang for hire, just before his own debut came out; a year later it spent four weeks at number one and won Single of the Year from both the CMA and the ACM.

Unable to pay a restaurant bill, a songwriter coined the title of Garth Brooks's signature drinking anthem by joking he knew whom?

The cook was who Earl Bud Lee said he knew when the bill came; he and Dewayne Blackwell sat on the quip for months, then began the song at a party for another writer's number one.

What did the video for 'The Thunder Rolls', banned by TNN in 1991, depict?

The video showed a cheating husband beating his wife, who then shoots him; TNN and CMT pulled it over the domestic violence, with Brooks himself playing the husband.

Which singer, a country star since her teens, recorded 'The Thunder Rolls' before Garth Brooks did, only to shelve it?

Tanya Tucker cut 'The Thunder Rolls' in the late 1980s, with an extra verse Brooks left off his own single, then dropped it from her album; it surfaced on her 1995 box set, after his version had gone to number one.

Which Garth Brooks album was the first country album to enter the Billboard 200 at number one?

Ropin' the Wind entered the Billboard 200 at number one in September 1991, the first country album to do so, and went on to spend 18 weeks on top of the pop chart.

Which Billy Joel song did Garth Brooks cover as a single from his third album?

'Shameless' came from Billy Joel's 1989 album Storm Front, which reached Brooks through a mail-order CD club while he was out on the road; his cover went to number one in November 1991.

A lyric about being free to love anyone helped 'We Shall Be Free' win Garth Brooks an award from which group?

GLAAD gave Brooks a 1993 Media Award for the song, written after he watched the Los Angeles riots; many country stations refused to play it, and it became his first single to miss the top ten.

Garth Brooks walked out before the 1993 Super Bowl anthem until NBC agreed to do what?

Air his new music video first: NBC had refused the 'We Shall Be Free' clip, so Brooks left the stadium 45 minutes before kickoff, and producers had Jon Bon Jovi standing by before the network gave in.

In 1993 Garth Brooks pressed his label not to ship In Pieces to stores that did what?

Sold used CDs, that is: Brooks said second-hand sales paid artists nothing, but with retailers filing antitrust suits the album was shipped to those stores after all.

Garth Brooks's 'Plus One' residency opened in 2023 at which Las Vegas resort?

Caesars Palace hosted Plus ONE in its Colosseum from May 2023, a 72-show run with no set list in which Brooks switched between solo acoustic songs and his full band.

On a 1994 tribute album, Garth Brooks teamed with which band to record 'Hard Luck Woman'?

Brooks recorded 'Hard Luck Woman' with Kiss themselves as his backing band for the 1994 tribute album Kiss My Ass, and the pairing performed it on The Tonight Show.

In Garth Brooks's 'Standing Outside the Fire' video, a teenager with Down syndrome skips Special Olympics to enter what?

The track meet is his school's regular one; when Brandon falls mid-race, the father who feared he would be embarrassed waves off the coach and urges him up to finish.

A 2022 college stadium crowd sang along to which Garth Brooks song hard enough to register on a campus seismograph?

'Callin' Baton Rouge', played before LSU home games, had Tiger Stadium jumping hard enough on 30 April 2022 to register on a campus seismograph, as the 1988 'Earthquake Game' touchdown once did.

Garth Brooks's 1995 single 'The Fever' reworked a song by which rock band?

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry wrote 'Fever' for 1993's Get a Grip; Brooks's version swapped its drug references for a bull rider hooked on rodeo and stalled at number 23.

Garth Brooks's free 1997 Central Park concert was broadcast live on which network?

HBO carried the 7 August 1997 show live and it became the channel's highest-rated original program of the year; Billy Joel and Don McLean walked on as surprise guests.

'To Make You Feel My Love', a country number one for Garth Brooks in 1998, was written by whom?

Bob Dylan wrote it for 1997's Time Out of Mind, though Billy Joel's cover reached shops first; Brooks cut it for the Hope Floats soundtrack and took it to number one on the country chart.

Which 1998 release, recorded on his second world tour, became the best-selling concert album of all time?

Double Live, released in November 1998, is RIAA-certified 21 times platinum, the best-selling live album in US history, and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.

Steve Wariner co-wrote which Garth Brooks drinking song from the album Sevens?

'Longneck Bottle', a western-swing shuffle by Wariner and Rick Carnes, put Wariner himself on guitar and harmony vocals and spent three weeks at number one from December 1997.

In 1999 Garth Brooks adopted the alter ego Chris Gaines, a rock star from which country?

Australia: the invented biography had Gaines born in Brisbane to an Olympic swimmer mother and a swimming-coach father, then raised near Los Angeles before joining a pop band called Crush.

Garth Brooks's Chris Gaines album was made to set up what, which never happened?

A film called The Lamb, a thriller in which a fan investigates the death of rock star Gaines; the album was its advance soundtrack, and the movie was never shot.

Singing as Chris Gaines in 1999, Garth Brooks scored his first top-40 hit on which chart?

The Billboard Hot 100 had never had a Brooks single in its top 40 until 'Lost in You' entered at number 5; none of his country number ones had got that far, and this one reached only 62 on the country chart.

When Garth Brooks retired in 2000, he vowed to stay away until which family milestone?

His youngest finishing high school was the bar Brooks set in October 2000; she graduated in 2014, and his comeback world tour opened that September outside Chicago.

In 2005 Garth Brooks leased his entire catalog exclusively to which retailer?

Walmart got the catalog because Brooks had split from his longtime record label earlier that year; by December the chain said its first box set of his albums had passed a million copies.

To lure Garth Brooks out of retirement for a Las Vegas residency in 2009, Steve Wynn offered what?

Use of a private jet sealed it: Wynn bought a plane so Brooks could play weekends at the Encore Theater and still be home in Oklahoma to drive his youngest daughter to school.

At which Dublin venue were five 2014 Garth Brooks concerts cancelled after a licensing row?

Croke Park got a licence from Dublin City Council for only three of the five nights; Brooks insisted on five shows or none at all, and about 400,000 tickets were refunded.

What was GhostTunes, which Garth Brooks launched in 2014?

His own digital music store, GhostTunes let labels decide how their music was sold, whole albums included; it took on iTunes for a little over two years before folding into Amazon Music in March 2017.

Which 2014 album was Garth Brooks's first studio release in 13 years?

Man Against Machine, his first studio album since 2001's Scarecrow, topped the country chart in November 2014 even though its lead single, 'People Loving People', stalled at number 25.

With which team did Garth Brooks first sign up for spring training, in 1998?

San Diego Padres camps in 1998 and 1999 came first, staged to launch his children's charity; he later trained with the Mets and, in 2019, the Pirates too.

Garth Brooks left his 1996 American Music Award for Artist of the Year on the podium, saying which act deserved it?

Hootie & the Blowfish had kept record stores alive in 1995, Brooks said backstage, so he left the trophy where it stood; Dick Clark, who ran the show, called the gesture a stroke of genius.

Garth Brooks co-founded which children's charity, in which pro athletes pledge donations based on their game statistics?

Teammates for Kids was launched from a ballpark: Brooks joined a major-league club's spring training to kick it off, first under the name Touch 'Em All, and other sports signed on later.

Garth Brooks named his first daughter after which singer-songwriter he idolized?

James Taylor gave Taylor Mayne Pearl Brooks her first name and Opry comedian Minnie Pearl a middle one; Taylor later sang 'The River' to Brooks at his Hall of Fame induction.

Who was Garth Brooks's first wife, his co-writer on the 1993 number one 'That Summer'?

Sandy Mahl married Brooks in May 1986 and moved with him to Nashville a year later; she helped him finish the chorus of 'That Summer' on a drive home after his producer turned down an earlier draft.

Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks's wife, hosted which Emmy-winning Food Network cooking series?

Trisha's Southern Kitchen grew out of the bestselling family cookbooks she wrote with her mother and sister, and won a Daytime Emmy in 2013, a year after its debut.

Which 1991 debut single made a star of Trisha Yearwood, then Garth Brooks's opening act?

'She's in Love with the Boy', written by Jon Ims, went to number one, but Yearwood was no newcomer: she had spent years in Nashville singing demos for other songwriters.

With a seventh Diamond-certified album in 2016, Garth Brooks moved past which act's total of six?

The Beatles had shared the record of six Diamond albums with Brooks until The Ultimate Hits became his seventh in September 2016; they still led him in total certified US sales.

In 2020 Garth Brooks became the youngest recipient to that date of which Library of Congress honor?

The Gershwin Prize for Popular Song came to Brooks at a March 2020 tribute concert in Washington, a day after a deadly tornado hit Nashville; he asked the hall for a moment of silence for its victims.

What did Garth Brooks sing at Joe Biden's inauguration in January 2021?

'Amazing Grace', sung a cappella, ended with Brooks asking the crowd and viewers at home to join the last verse; he then held things up by stopping to hug every former president and first lady on the platform.

Which John Lennon song did Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood perform at Jimmy Carter's state funeral in 2025?

'Imagine' had also been their song at Rosalynn Carter's Atlanta memorial in November 2023, with Yearwood singing lead; the two couples had grown close over years of Habitat for Humanity builds.

In August 2021 Garth Brooks sold about 90,000 tickets, then his most for one show, at a college stadium in which state?

Nebraska's Memorial Stadium in Lincoln drew nearly 90,000 that night, but the run stopped there: days later Brooks cancelled his next five stadium dates as the Delta variant of COVID-19 spread.

Garth Brooks says he took the energy of his stage show from which rodeo champion turned singer?

Chris LeDoux, a world champion bareback rider, won a major-label deal after Brooks name-checked him in his first single; when LeDoux needed a liver transplant in 2000, Brooks offered part of his own, but it was no match.

'Dive Bar', the 2019 single Garth Brooks promoted with a tour of dive bars, is a duet with whom?

Blake Shelton, a fellow Oklahoma native, joined Brooks at a Boise stadium show in July 2019 to sing it live; the Dive Bar Tour had opened four days earlier at Joe's on Weed Street in Chicago.

What nickname is given to the studio band that has played on nearly all of Garth Brooks's records?

The G-Men are the Nashville session players heard on his albums since his 1989 debut; when Brooks entered the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2016, they were inducted alongside him.

What was the title of Garth Brooks's first Christmas album, released in August 1992?

Beyond the Season came out in August; by the Brooks camp's own account, the early date made the title's point, that Christmas goodwill should outlast the holiday. It peaked at number 2 on the Billboard 200.